Monday, March 16, 2009

How will YOU see in the future? How will OTHERS see you in the future?

When my father was ill in 2003 the doctors gave him a disposable pill-sized camera to swallow that would record pictures from inside. I was fascinated by the camera and I really wanted to see how the pictures would be downloaded from the camera, but my father just swallowed the pill camera with a huge glass of water. So much for my curiosity.

Fast forward to today. Rob Spence, a documentary filmmaker who lost one of his eyes due to a childhood injury, now wants to replace his prosthetic eye with a high-tech wireless web-connected video camera. He calls himself Eyeborg. His current prosthetic eye is not an orb but a soft material that sits on a peg that was surgically implanted inside the opening. Right now there is a team of people working to make him an eye camera with a miniature lenses and a wireless transmitter. Once the team can make a powerless solution and a wireless solution for the eye camera Rob will have a bionic eye. The camera is the tiny black circle in the middle of the chip below.

How will this eye camera affect the future of optical robotics? One member of the team thinks this camera will lay the groundwork for curing blindness. Could someone who is blind be able to see again using ocular technology? Others on the team think this will give people the ability to record everything they see and experience.

I think having the ability to see again for people who have lost their vision is a tremendous step forward in technology and medicine and I would want to see again if I became blind. However, I'm not sure I want to wonder in the future who has an eye camera that may be recording me. What do you think?

For the documentary filmmaker then possibly he would be able to film in a more beneficial way thru the eye camera compared to having a camera in his hands or a camerman following him around. But recording everyday life, my life, without my permission, not sure about that.